MMRP: Trans People In Gaming: How Video Games Are Being Used to Explore Gender Identity (2022)

Growing up, I lived in a strict Korean household that valued report cards and fine arts over video games and cartoons. Having gone to predominantly White school districts and being a chubby Asian American child from a traditionalist immigrant family, I often found myself struggling to relate to my peers when talking about pop culture. After all, my childhood was pretty bleak and uneventful - until I was blessed with my first broken bone injury.

After a snowboarding accident which resulted in a wrist fracture and a neon green cast, my parents decided to dip into my college fund to buy my first personal computer - a blue Dell Inspiron laptop. From spending countless nights reading the same books to gaining unbridled access to the Internet mixed with the hyperactive energy and curiosity of a bored teenager, I sank countless school days and weekend nights tapping away on my new laptop. My after-school routine consisted of tossing my backpack aside and procrastinating on homework and SAT prep while playing “Team Fortress 2” and “Mabinogi” until 4 a.m., meticulously leaving an earbud out to listen for my parents’ footsteps in the hallway.

Video games weren’t just a form of entertainment, but also an escape: a reprieve from the monotony of uneventful teenage years, the sneering insults of classmates who picked on my weight or race and the heavy expectations of parents who expected academic excellence. I wasn’t alone, though. Through those video games, I formed an eclectic group of friends ranging from different backgrounds, nationalities and lifestyles - a full-fledged band of misfits who quietly defied societal norms by staying up past their bedtimes and playing M-rated games. However, like me, they had their own sets of problems - sometimes even within the online communities they escaped to to take a break from their real lives.

Bullying, harassment and name-calling are to be expected when entering the online gaming space. It’s almost a rite of passage for a gamer to receive an onslaught of slurs and threats at some point during their gaming career after dominating an opponent who just pulled an all-nighter fueled by a Red Bull four-pack and stale Pizza Rolls. As video gaming becomes more accessible to people and attracts wider audiences, unsavory characters are bound to slip through the cracks.

It’s no secret how popular gaming has become nowadays. According to Variety’s 2021 Level Up report, the video gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar titan that towers over both the film and music industries in the entertainment sphere. Furthermore, according to Statista and Variety, the extremely profitable industry has an estimated 3.24 billion gamers worldwide within a market projected to surpass $200 billion by 2023. Video game tournaments are held and filled to the brim in the largest venues around the world with winning pots reaching into the millions.

The industry also lauds itself for its diverse player bases and LGBTQ+ representation on social media and in its games. According to an Out article, a 2020 Nielsen survey showed that 10% of all gamers over the age of 18 identified as LGBTQ+. Within that 10%, 10% of those over the age of 13 identified as transgender or non-binary. This is not a small number to overlook when considering the sheer magnitude of the gaming community.

However, contrary to the growing population of trans gamers and the industry’s showboating of LGBTQ+ representation, there continue to be deeply-rooted issues within both the industry and player communities that are underrepresented and seldom discussed. In other words, as trans voices and representation begin to emerge within the gaming communities and industry, so does its oppositions who continue to target and harass them.

At the front of the stage, the gaming world has made efforts to become more trans inclusive - even from as early as the 90’s. According to an article from Phenix Gaming, Birdo from Nintendo’s 1987 “Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic” appears to have pioneered trans representation in video games.

Today, game studios continue to introduce transgender characters like Lev from Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us Part II” and Kasio from Dreamfeel’s “If Found”. Dontnod Entertainment also attracted widespread media attention with “Tell Me Why”, a 2020 narrative adventure game, for its inclusion of a transgender protagonist in a triple-A game.

Behind the curtain, though, there are professionals in the industry who continue to face prejudice and harassment from coworkers. According to Activision Blizzard, they have been “named one of the ‘Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality’ by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index in 2019 and 2020.’”

Meanwhile, according to an article from Inverse, former Activision Blizzard employees said that coworkers complained about “the ‘SJW’ and the ‘Alphabet people.’” and that “Blizzard or the games industry is not a thriving place to explore your gender and sexuality.” One of the former employees, who was non-binary, never came out to their coworkers during the four years or so that they worked there.

Furthermore, the company has been known to refer to its transgender employees by their dead names. To clarify, “dead-naming” is when a person refers to a transgender person by their pre-transition name.

The communities and players are obviously not without fault either. For streamers and content creators, the reality of being an online personality on an open platform is that they can become targeted by anybody, anytime. Gwen (@ShmoopleOW), a trans female Twitch partner, said, “I block a different person for being rude, transphobic or threatening every day. There has never been any coordinated attacks on me, luckily, as there have been for some of my peers. One time, I went very viral and I consider that the start of my career as a creator. The replies and messages I got were practically split down the middle of people defending me and people saying awful things.”

Furthermore, the gaming industry and its outlets seem to do little to assess these issues. “There were a lot of hate raids in the LGBTQ space last June and Twitch’s reaction to it was less than ideal to put it lightly. They basically pushed all of the responsibility on the creators to lock down their channels and make it terribly difficult for a normal user to enter,” said Gwen. “Instead of making new account creation more intensive, they offloaded responsibility. I think it will take queer people in the gaming industry to get positions of power for things to really change for the better. This will not change on its own, and it will not change without uplifting trans voices.”

Gender and sexual orientation are major reasons for abuse within the gaming community, according to a 2020 Anti-Defamation League report. Specifically, more than a third of LGBTQ+ gamers reported that they were harassed in online multiplayer games. Transgender people are more likely to be victims of cyberbullying, too. Specifically, transgender children are more likely to be victimized compared to their binary gender counterparts, according to a 2021 Cyberbullying Research Center report.

Made with Flourish by David Joo

However, there is a silver lining. Amidst the hostility, harassment and targeting towards trans gamers, there continues to be thriving communities who still find enjoyment, support and even gender euphoria.

Outlets like Twitch have active trans spaces filled with both supportive professionals and gamers. Gwen said, “The trans gaming community is a very welcoming one. The communities really support each other because there is a common understanding of what each of us might go through. Especially on Twitch, I can go to another trans streamer’s chat and recognize a few names from my chat. I would consider all of our channels pretty tight-knit.”

Video games also tend to have colorful communities surrounding them and can be outlets for trans people to experience as their chosen genders. According to a WIRED article, trans players have used open-world and sims games like “Stardew Valley” and “Animal Crossing” to cultivate trans-friendly safe spaces to experiment and explore their gender identities with.

Specifically, according to a 2020 National Library of Medicine article called “The Role of the Avatar in Gaming for Trans and Gender Diverse Young People”, a study found that video games and the creation of customizable avatars offered trans people safe, low-risk, alternative outlets to experiment, explore and solidify their gender identities.

Within the study of 17 young transgender people who were surveyed and interviewed, many of the participants stated that the creation and customization of in-game avatars was a “first, or formative, step in privately acknowledging their gender identity before they came out in the real (offline world)” and that “they also described an ongoing process of experimenting with, refining, and finally consolidating this identity in the relative safety of the gaming world.”

The participants also stated that they experienced positive emotions when playing as an avatar in their chosen genders. While some found enjoyment simply by playing as their chosen gender, others found validation when their “avatars were acknowledged and accepted in their experienced gender in-game, for example, through game dialogue or by other players online.”

This “acknowledgement” can be considered as an example of gender euphoria - or a state of comfort when one’s gender is affirmed and aligned with their identity. The affirmation of one’s gender identity is something trans players can find through the games they play and the communities they participate in. Even within an industry and a player base that ridicule, target and harass LGBTQ+ gamers, it’s good to know that tight-knit trans and queer gamers continue to support each other in order to create inclusive spaces where they can freely express themselves.